ARUP Fitzrovia

The breath-taking feature wall in the atrium at ARUP’s UK headquarters called for the highest level of precision and attention to detail.

With buildings like the Sydney Opera House under its belt, the engineering firm ARUP needed a suitably spectacular London HQ. OAG helped deliver that by installing a six-storey tall feature wall in the building’s atrium.

The wall is actually an enormous piece by the renowned glass artist Alexander Belechenko. His textured design, made up of hundreds of thousands of tiny symbols in varying shades, was laminated into the glass panels by the German firm BGT. Bands of flat blue colour break up the sections of ‘code’ as they climb their way up the wall.

Because each panel in the feature wall was an integral and irreplaceable section of the artwork, there was no room for error when bonding the glass to the steel bearers and the supporting steel structure. No spares would be available if any were spoiled. The top section of the feature wall presented a different challenge. It hides a cleaning gantry that slides out beneath the atrium roof, which is clad with part of the artwork.